Cinecast Episode 300 – Lets Talk Some Shit!

For our MEGA-SUPER-DUPER-EXTRAVAGANZA episode 300, we do what we always do, talk casually about movies. Seriously folks, despite our inability to properly plan for these big milestone episodes, we appreciate our listening audience mightily, and their ongoing interaction on the site and by email and other means. To kick off the show, Andrew reads some listener mail which gets us right down into the minutiae of Park Chan-Wook’s Stoker (again.) This is a film we love to talk about! Kurt skims across the surface of three profound science fiction epics, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris and Sunshine before getting mired in the bizarre world of Twin Peaks and Fire Walk with Me. We talk the legacy of James Cameron’s Titanic in all its goofy glory, as well as boats and tigers novel adaptations with Life of Pi. And we leave with a bang in the form of homo-erotic riff on Sergio Leone by way of Bill Murray’s Quick Change – the 1967 Japanese-noir-gangster-western A Colt Is My Passport.

As always, please join the conversation by leaving your own thoughts in the comment section below and again, thanks for listening!

17 Comments

Great, now i have to rewatch ‘Fire walk with me’. It’s been almost 20 years. I only remember not liking it as much as the show (which i still love). Hopefully my 18 year old self wasn’t that bright and the movie is much better now.

My favourite Lynch film. It certainly hasn’t always been, but over time it has slowly grown in my estimation. So may incredible, indelible scenes… I haven’t listened to the podcast yet, and I’m intrigued as to what has been said about it.

To clarify, I did like Stoker, but what I was getting at was that Park, to me, got so caught up in artfully framing every shot, the film’s tone felt all over the place. And regarding the pheasant hunting, I did note that it was a bit of a nit-pick.

@Kurt The guy in A Colt Is My Passport is Jo Shishido and his magnificent jowls are fake. He had surgery to have cheekbones inserted to give him a more rugged look, he was considered too much of a pretty boy to play yakuza tough guys.

You should also check out the three Seijun Suzuki films he stars in Youth of the Beast, Gate of Flesh & Branded to Kill (all criterions) plus the fantastically titled Detective Bureau 23: Go to Hell, Bastards!

God bless Mr. Laczkowski indeed for an awesome commemorative song – and kudos for segueing into the appropriate scene in “Boogie Nights” (weirdly, just one day after I re-watched the film with Anderson’s commentary).

Thanks for the responses to my question, guys. I can actually totally sympathize with you being hard-pressed to come up with responses – I too often like to read stuff that takes me away from movie-world for a while, and I only occasionally venture back into film writing. As for recommendations, I’d say any one of Roger Ebert’s “Great Movies” books is totally worth checking out – each one is filled with lots of great, highly readable essays on various films. Also, out of the BFI Film Classics series, I really recommend Dana Polan’s addictive volume on “Pulp Fiction” – not only one of the best and most complete readings of that film you could hope to find, but also possibly the best assessment of Tarantino as a filmmaker that there is. It’s still totally applicable to him and his sensibilities right up to “Basterds” and “Django,” even though it was published in 2000.

There’s been a lot of weird “Twin Peaksian” TV though usually it’s on either Cable or…. ABC.

ABC green lights at least one “let’s recreate the magic of twin peaks” every couple of years going way back to the Jim Belushi-led “Wild Palms” right after Peaks was cancelled and going as recent as “Happy Town” and “The River”

“Happy Town” is on hulu now (all 8 episodes) and I own “The River” and “Wild Palms” on DVD.

Just last week A&E launched “Bates Motel” which is (right now) not weird enough for me but is definitely going for a next twin peaks vibe.

TWIN PEAKS has been on my “to-watch” list for what seems like forever, though I have watched part of TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. It’s a shame that you never once mentioned David Bowie’s cameo in the film, since that’s the part that sticks out for me (though I’ve only seen like half the film on a late night TV screening).

Now it’s on Netflix, I should finally getting around to watching the show.

Damn you, Kurt. Every time you bring up Soderbergh’s Solaris I feel the need to pop that DVD in and let it wash over me.
The only mistake in that film, however, is Jeremy Davies listening to Insane Clown Posse. Fuck that noise.

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